Academics & Research

The Daemen Core

The Daemen College core curriculum is an innovative competency-based curriculum. In today’s rapidly changing world, the competencies developed in the core curriculum will have lasting value and will provide a strong basis for lifelong learning.

1. Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving

Critical thinking employs intellectual skills such as observation, classification, analysis, and synthesis in a reasonable and reflective manner to arrive at meaningful decisions. Creative problem solvers think analytically (cognitively and affectively) and integrate various forms of disparate information into a coherent whole. They demonstrate the ability to reason both inductively and deductively, generate alternative choices, consider consequences associated with each choice, and arrive at a reasonable decision in both familiar and unfamiliar contexts.

Clifford C. Pyne ’93

Bachelor of Science in Nursing

I learned so much about medical research and the nursing process at Daemen, and the level of professionalism among the faculty and staff had a great impact on my life.

2. Information Literacy

Information Literacy is defined as the ability to know when there is a need for information, and to be able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.

Sue Falsone ’96

Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy

Anything worth anything requires hard work, a little sacrifice, and time management. Including finding time for yourself. That’s what I learned at Daemen, on top of the PT education.

3. Communication Skills

Effective communication includes grammatical and technical competency as well as the ability to communicate across cultural boundaries with an awareness of the rhetorical effects of language in a variety of situational contexts (including non-verbal). An ongoing writing curriculum embedded throughout the core will enhance a student’s abilities to organize ideas coherently and strategically, to choose words precisely for different levels of discourse, and to evaluate appropriate tone in a variety of discursive situations.

Susan A. Conners ’69

Bachelor of Arts

“I learned about Rosary Hill from my guidance counselor. I wanted a small school and when Rosary Hill gave me a full scholarship I jumped at the chance. It was the only way I could go to college.”

4. Affective Awareness

Affective awareness emanates from the relationship between sensory experience and emotional response. A sensory experience can move people to great emotional depths and can provoke powerful sensations. An affective process reveals biases, identifies patterns, creates meaning in response to this perception. By assessing affective awareness, one gains aesthetic sensibility to respond knowingly and probingly to the myriad appeals to affective consciousness that characterize contemporary culture.

James Kuo 37 year Professor of Art

James Allen, professor of art at Daemen, observed in his notes for a 1997-98 retrospective exhibition that Kuo’s work rewarded “all but the most insensitive or jaded viewer with lingering sensations bordering on awe and spiritual renewal, not unlike feelings provoked in the presence of nature’s most impressive places.”

5. Moral and Ethical Discernment

Moral and ethical discernment is defined as a non-judgmental understanding of how moral and ethical standards are formed, how they influence aspects of our lives, and how they shape public discourse and policy. Moral and ethical discernment is linked to such concepts as integrity, objectivity, public interest, and justice.

Penny Schnitter Frese ’68

Bachelor of Arts in English

The how’s and why’s of Penny’s return to Buffalo and campus are integral parts of her life and career as wife, mother, helpmate in her husband’s career as a nationally renowned mental health expert, teacher, and advocate for the early diagnosis and treatment of juvenile mental illness.

6. Contextual Integration

Acquiring contextual competency allows individuals to identify and integrate relevant past and present issues affecting individuals, organizations, local societies, and global communities and to understand the constraints and impacts of social, cultural, environmental, political, and other contexts on issues and solutions.

Thelma Farley ’61

Bachelor of Arts in Music Education

If you think about it, none of us learns from a cookie-cutter approach, one-size fits all or all on the same day at the same time, Thelma advises. Children and teens learn through very specific ways, depending primarily on their age and stage of development.

7. Civic Responsibility

Civic responsibility is grounded in an appreciation that the health of local, national, and global communities is dependent on the direct and active participation of all members in the well being of the community as a whole. Acquiring civic responsibility enables individuals to transform their social interests into personal advocacy and social participation in local and global communities. Civic responsibility entails a life-long commitment to addressing problems these communities face.

Jeffrey R. Rabey ‘92

Bachelor of Science in Education

“We talk a global economy but we all suffer if we don’t change how we educate students…We have to connect kids to the educational system; that’s why we’re building a career academy, to make it relevant.”